In year 8 students have 30 lessons a week, these are allotted as follows:
Design and technology – This is a rotation where students study food, graphics, photography, resistant materials, textiles and first aid
Personal development – Includes religious education
Arts – This is one period of art, drama and music
Below is a general overview of the topics students are taught throughout the year in each subject.
For a more in depth outline of each subject please click on the link (in each drop down) to view the full subject page.
If you would like to speak to us about any aspect of our curriculum please get in touch.
Art
Autumn term
Baseline and Hucknall
- Observational drawing
- Mark making and texture
- Colour
- Hucknall project exploring Hucknall town’s history and successes
Spring term
Still life ‘generations’ and portrait
- Observational drawing
- Painting
- Tonal
- Mixed media
- Exploring generations through objects and still life
- Proportions
- Expression
- Identity
- Artist influences
Summer term
Wider world and recycled art
- Exploring art from around the world and how artists can reflect on what is happening in modern times
- Creative ideas and application
- Environmental issues
- Group work
- Location art
Computer science
Autumn term
• Computing understanding – introducing computer science
• Cyber bullying – design and develop an anti-cyber bullying video
Spring term
• Superhero website – using HTML to design a website about a superhero
• Datasheep – students must design a fit-for-purpose database
Summer term
• Multi-level game design – using Kodu Game Lab to develop a game with at least three levels
• Computing knowledge and safety – malware and other threats to online safety
Design and technology
Technology rotation
Workshop – trinket box: students will apply basic CAD design and apply basic joints to a wooden box.
Food and nutrition – health and safety along with exploration of nutrition, cutting techniques and characteristics of a broad range of food.
Textiles – Dias de los Muertos: students will explore the design aspects of this festival to create a 3D textile piece looking at key stitches.
Photography – please refer to individual photography information.
Graphic communication – students are given a design brief to design and make a new toy box.
Drama
Autumn term
Blood Brothers scripted
Spring term
Devising/practitioners
Summer term
Craig and Bentley (historical)
English language and literature
Autumn term
Villains in literature. Core text: William Shakespeare – Macbeth
Key knowledge:
- Elizabethan context
- Shakespearean language
- Gothic description
Key vocabulary:
- Aggression
- Empathy
- Prejudice
- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Supernatural
- Revenge
- Ambition
- Loyalty
- Guilt
- Fate
- Conscience
- Soliloquy
Key skills:
- Develop comparative skills with a focus on language, structure and writer’s intent
- Writing to persuade
- Writing to argue
- Creative writing through description
- Revisit grammatical constructions from year 7
Spring term
Crime and punishment Core text: The works of Arthur Conan Doyle
Rationale: To explore how crime and punishment have altered during history, exploring how writers have depicted crimes and how religion can have an effect on how crimes are viewed.
Key knowledge:
- Victorian context
- Crimes across time
- Human rights
- Religion
- Punishment
Key vocabulary:
- Symbolism
- Relationships
- Morality
- Mystery
- Inference
- Deduction
- Sociopath
- Morality
- Perception
- Humour
- Perception
Key skills:
- Develop a personal response to fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on language and structure
- Narrative writing
- Extensive range of vocabulary
Summer term
Doomsday. Core text: Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games
Rationale: To explore the presentation of societies in literature with a focus on the dystopian.
Key knowledge:
- Dystopian fiction
- Segregation
- Discrimination
- Traditions
- Roles in society
- Class
Key vocabulary:
- Superior
- Subservient
- Prejudice
- Society
- Divides
- Forbidden
- Debating
Key skills:
- Return to comparison, adding personal response and introducing evaluation
- Developing a character voice through creative writing
- Confidently identify and apply grammatical constructions.
French
Autumn term
Theme: identity and culture
Talk about clothes and give opinions on different styles
- Learn about the weather
- Describe what you wear for different occasions
- Discuss week-end activities and give opinions and preferences
- Talk about daily routines
- Talk about sports, leisure activities
- Name parts of the body & sports injuries
Spring term
Themes: identity and culture, local, national, international and global areas of interest
- Learn about different TV programmes
- Talk about music genres
- Give detailed opinions
- Talk about film genres
- Talk about reading preferences
Summer term
Theme: local, national, international and global areas of interest
Destination vacations and holiday research project
- Learn about old and new technology
- Talk about how you use it for leisure activities
- Identify the risks of social media and network sites
- Discuss pros and cons of new technology
- Talk about favourite technology and gadgets
- Talk about holiday destinations
- Describe your ideal holiday
- Describe a past holiday, where you sent, and what you did
Geography
Autumn term
Brazil
• What is Brazil like?
• Inequality in Brazil
• Development indicators
• Biomes
• Amazon rainforest
• Animal and plant adaptations
Coasts and oceans
• Erosion and transport
• Coastal landforms
• Management of our UK coastlines
• People and oceans
• Coral reefs
• Plastic problems
Spring term
Fantastic places
• Svalbard
• Grand Canyon
• Mt Everest
• Forbidden places
• Great Barrier Reef
Japan
• What is Japan like?
• Sushi
• Ageing population
• Structure of the earth
• Power problems
• Japanese earthquake
Summer term
Changing shape of Britain
• River basin
• River stages
• Meanders
• Flooding
• Somerset floods
Globalisation investigation
History
Autumn term
The Tudors
• Who was Martin Luther?
• What was the Reformation?
• Why did Henry VIII break from Rome?
• Was Mary Tudor ‘Bloody Mary’?
• Why did Elizabeth defeat the Spanish Armada?
• Lives of Black Tudors including John Blanke, Mary Fillis and Diego
The Stuarts
• Was the Gunpowder Plot a conspiracy?
• Why was there a civil war?
• Why was Charles I executed?
• How was England governed without a monarch?
• Why were so many people accused of witch craft?
• Why did so many people die of plague?
Spring term
Empire
• European exploration of the New World
• What was the British Empire?
• How should the British Empire be remembered?
• British rule in America
• The impact of the empire on India
• The scramble for Africa
• The legacy of the British Empire
Slavery
• The transatlantic slave trade
• Life on the Middle Passage
• Life on the plantations
• Slave resistance
• Who benefitted from slavery?
• Nottinghamshire and slavery
• The abolition of slavery
• Modern slavery
• Modern racial attitudes
Summer term
Industrial Revolution
- Industrial towns and cities
- Inventions
- Transport
- Working in the factories
- Public health
- Popular protest
- Women in the Industrial Revolution
Democracy and society
- Edwardian Britain
- Liberal reforms
- What can the Titanic tell us about attitudes in society?
- Suffragettes fight for the vote- tactics used, outrage at Kew, Emily Davison
Mathematics
Autumn term
Fractions, conversions and statistics
- 4 operations with fractions
- Unit conversions
- Compound measures
- Real life tables
- Averages including those from tables
- Comparing averages
- Cumulative frequency and box plots
Spring term
Algebra, area and 3D shapes
- Substitution
- Solving equations
- Laws of indices
- Inequalities
- Changing the subject of a formula
- Coordinates and linear graphs
- Area and perimeter of shapes
- Volume and surface area of 3D shapes
Summer term
Ratio, proportions and angles
- Angles in parallel lines and polygons
- Area of trapezia and circles
- Line symmetry and reflection
- The data handling cycle
- Measures of location
Music
Autumn term
Find your voice 3
Keyboard skills
Spring term
Samba
Keyboard skills 4
Summer term
The Blues
Rap music
Personal development
Autumn term
Hinduism – me myself and I – healthy choices
- Confidence
- Target setting
- Managing my behaviour for success
- Emotional literacy
- Mindfulness
- Smoking
- Cancer
- Personal safety
- First aid
Spring term
Inspirational people/Islam (see RE curriculum), sex and relationships
- Consent
- Sexting
- Dangers of porn
- Online safety
- Homophobia
- Tolerance
- Stereotyping
- Radicalisations
- Extremism
Summer term
Civil rights rules and laws – local government careers
- Income and expenditure
- Careers skills
- The functions of local government
- Decision-making processes
Physical education
Students study the same activities in years 7 to 9 as this gives them the opportunity to show a greater level of progression in their tactical awareness, knowledge of the rules and skill level in each of the activities.
| Girls | Boys |
| Trampolining | Football |
| Table tennis | Rugby |
| Dance | Handball |
| Handball | Boxercise |
| Boxercise | Trampolining |
| Netball | Table tennis |
| Rounders | Rounders |
| Athletics | Athletics |
| Fitness | Fitness |
| Football | Cricket |
| Tag rugby | Softball |
| Frisbee |
Photography
- Fast shutter speed – bubble photography, splash photography and levitation photography
- Slow shutter speed – light painting and blurred motion
- Exploring editing skills
Religious education
Autumn term: ethics and Hinduism
- Introduction to ethics
- Marriage
- Marriage in Islam
- Divorce
- Introduction to Hinduism
- Hinduism One God
- Hinduism One God 2
- Deities
- The Person Atman
- Human life
- Worship
Spring term: inspirational people and Islam
- Sporting heroes
- Malala
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Irene Sendler and Corrie Ten Boom
- Assessment
- Introduction to Islam
- The five pillars of Islam
- Mosque
- Prayer
- Qu’ran
- Islamophobia
Summer term: Martin Luther King/rules and laws
- The Civil Rights movement
- The Bus Boycott
- Success and suffering
- MLK speeches
- Free at last
- Introduction and the golden rule
- The 10 Commandments
- Kosher
- Kosher 2
- Shabbat
- The 5 Ks
- Muslim food
- Muslim dress
Science
Autumn term
- Health and lifestyle
- The Periodic Table
- Space
Spring term
- Ecosystem processes
- Separation techniques
- Electricity and magnetism
Summer term
- Reproduction
- Acids and alkalis
- Energy
- Light
